Monday, January 30, 2012

Sofia Vergara in DETAILS | The Past is the Future is the Present: Ruminations on the Latest Latina Femme Fatale

Sofia Vergara is a collage--there lurking in her performative DNA lurk Lupe Velez, Raquel Welch, Tina Louise, Lucille Ball, Rita Hayworth and a handful of other successful femme fatales. She has her own style, to be sure, but she moves with a familiar rhythm--much of what I had to say about Latina/o figuration in Tex{t}-Mex had to with a lurid metonymification where "Mexican" or "Latina/o" evolved as a shorthand for a velvety sexuality--on the brink of being always/already pejorative (for some), a possibility (for pleasure) for others.

1 comment:

Here's my two cents on the lovely Sofia, but being only an acolyte of Latino culture, I'm not sure it's blog post or comment-worthy...++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Here I quote one of my favorite (self-identified)'Not Chicano'(s) JG Gonzalez, who says that this aspect of the 'culture' is a result of... too many hormones in chicken and beef consumed ... imparting a curvaceous 'velvety sexuality' on the part of the ladies, and, quoting another 'Not Chicana' feminista, 'the perpetual mindset of a 16 year-old boy' in the gents... Their comments cause me to ruminate that if diet/foodways are a part of maintaining culture, and as long as general lack of education is also part of the culture (statistically US Latinos have a lower graduation rate in high school and college) then this aspect of the culture will perpetuate itself indefinitely. Yes of course Miss Sofia is super-sexy, and I'm happy for her success; why can't my splendid brainiac Latina students be seen with so much respect(and desirability)? But who am I to say we have to give up fajitas etc. before these cultural paradigms fall away?

For the record, there are plenty of curvy non-latino ladies and gents with maturity levels set at 16. Culture doesn't really play a role here unless we choose to see it through that particular methodological kaleidaskope.Which of course the mainstream media does, and then Mr. Nericcio points it out, and we have to re-acknowledge it!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

By the way, the Shepard Girl Gila in La Pastorela, while pretty, doesn't fit the media's Latina paradigm; she never loses her head or causes undue temptation..... Very interesting! You should check it out!

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About Tex[t]-Mex™

The new and improvedTex[t]-Mex blog devotes itself to the aggressive, relentless, and, at times, pathological interrogation of Mexican, Latina/o, Chicana/o, "Hispanic," Mexican-American, and Latin American stereotypes. It is both the online supplement to and the bastard sister of a 2007 University of Texas Press book... (continued)